Saturday, July 14, 2012

japanese curry udon

This dish is perfect if you have left over Japanese curry from previous day's dinner. But you can also make this anytime. Just add beef/chicken stock, and it becomes a noddle dish! It's a big hit during summer when all you want to eat is a bowl of noodle. 

Ingredients:

Beef or chicken - 1/2 lbs
Potatoes - 2 med (cubed)
Carrots - 2 med (cubed)
Onion - 1/2 med (cubed)

Japanese curry roux - 2 blocks (each packet comes with two separate cases. In each case there are four, so you just want to use two of them. 1/4 of the whole box)

Beef/Chicken stock - 5 cups **see under 'cook'

Udon noodle (or your choice of noodle) - enough for 4 people 

[**If you are using leftover curry, see TIPS]

















Prep:

  1. Cube potatoes, carrots and onions into 1 cm cubes.
  2. Cut beef into thin slices or chicken into bite size pieces. 
For curry udon, it's easier to eat if the veggies are smaller

Cook:

  1. In a 5-quart pot, heat 2 TBS of oil, add in onion and fry until fragrant (2 min). Don't let it burn by stirring occasionally. 
  2. Add in beef or chicken. Fry for 2 minutes. Add in veggies. Coat veggies with oil. Let it integrate with meat & onion. 
  3. Put enough beef/chicken stock to cover the veggies/meat. Bring it to boil and lower the heat to simmer for about 5 minutes.
  4. There will be brown color stuff/scum on top of the broth. Take a ladle and scoop it out. Fill the pot with more broth. 
  5. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add in curry roux (2 cubes). Let it simmer & stir for 10 minutes. 
  6. If the curry seems too thick, add more broth or water. You want the soup-like texture, not thick texture like for curry rice. 
  7. Meanwhile, prepare udon noodles by boiling them (follow the instruction on the packet) **see TIPS
  8. Taste the soup. Adjust the taste by adding salt & pepper.



Beef/Chicken broth enough to cover the veggies/meat
Take out the brown stuff/scum with ladle
Use half of this case (2 blocks)


Serve:

  1. Place noodle in a bowl. Scoop out desired amount of veggies & meat. Pour the soup on top. 
  2. Some people like the soup separate from noodle. It's called 'tsukemen', meaning you dip your noodle in the soup. 

TIPS

  • For left over curry - warm the curry up in a pot. Add in enough beef/chicken stock (add slowly) and stir to get the soup-like texture. 
  • No stock? No problem. You can also use dashi water or plain water.
  • Noodle - I like to use dry udon noodles that are a bit platter and thinner than regular frozen udon noodles. It has great texture (not so starchy). 

1 comment:

  1. Yes... all I want to eat is a BIG bowl of noodles!!! So sad. :(

    ReplyDelete